Summer Solstice

Here are some pics of how the allotment was looking on the longest day of the year (yesterday). Unfortunately neither me nor Baz had been to the allotment for a couple of weeks. This was as a result of Baz working and studying loads for an exam (with the OU), me lacking motivation and confidence to go on my own (yes I know it sounds silly but it's true...), and both of us visiting friends and family in Stoke over the weekend. But we went yesterday anyway and Baz reckoned things weren't as bad as he had expected. Me, I don't know, I was so caught up in feeling like crap and being self-absorbed in my own troubles and woes that I'm not sure either way. But it was nice to be there, despite all my silly, pointless worrying.

Ok depressing-ness over.....

...so of all the things we've put in the ground since we got the allotment at the end of April, it seems that some veg are doing really well whilst others, well, are not.

The onion, garlic, potatoes, dwarf beans, squash, chard, some of the carrots, raspberries and strawberries are all alive and well. However, as for the rest, they've either not come up or been eaten by various critters. The rocket and cabbage had been totally munched down to a few sad-looking stalks, and a few other things we weren't sure whether they had shown then been eaten or not come up at all. Partly our fault I guess for not being there, but I wonder whether they would have got eaten anyway?

Well anyway it's all a learning curve and we're at the very beginning of the curve, so we've got plenty of time to learn.  The raspberries we picked didn't make it home in solid form being as they were in Baz's bike basket, so Baz mixed them with the four strawberries and a banana, and we had them in liquid form. Yum. You could taste the goodness.

Now that Baz isn't studying so much and hopefully now that I can motivate myself to go a bit more, we should be able to put more time in. Oh there are cherries on the tree at the bottom of the plot, which look lovely. I'm not sure if we will get our hands on any before the birds get to them?

xx

Rainy days

We got lots of lovely rain today for our little baby vegetable plants!!

We went up with our friend Sanj who we roped into helping us sort the shed out, even though it was his birthday and we were really wet and cold and he probably wanted to be in the pub not shifting bits of plastic around in the rain, but anyway it was a good session as now the shed is no longer looking like a bomb went off in it. And it's nice to be doing it with a friend.

You can see the sparkly new bbq Mum gave us!

Hasta la vista xxxx

Is it really June already?

Can't believe we're in June.... But that's how that time thing works, especially when you're consumed with things like having an anxiety disorder and depression and trying to get through each day, somehow you wake up one day and realise you sort of weren't really here for the last six months.

So I didn't go to that physic garden I was talking about as it was closed, but am looking forward to visiting it the next time I venture north.

Was at the allotment yesterday, which involved weeding and digging for me and watering and bbq making for Baz. It really is looking so good at the moment, so alive with things growing and as I was feeling a bit more clear headed than usual, I could actually see it in all it's new glory. Wish I could have said Morning Glory, but I think we've accidentally killed off the ones Mum gave us. Oops.

Oh yeh I also put in some squash and pumpkin, totally forgot to take a picture, but they were given to us by Andy next door. The bed I put them in took so bloody long to dig as the ground is like concrete what with all the no rain and everything.

Yeh so Mum gave us a bbq which Baz put together, and I'm really excited about having summer bbqs. . . mmm sausages. . . mmm fry's burgers. . . mmm food.

Mum's also given us a reel of hose piping she didn't use anymore which is great.

No more exciting news but will post some pictures later and update on what we get up to today.

Adios amigos xxxx

Erbs

Well I'm still far far away in Warden Land, but have had an update from Baz on the phone.

Baz has put in some rocket and mizuna which makes up for the fact that he forgot to put in some more lettuce and carrot seed into the bed I did a couple of weeks back. I forgive him as he was hungover and probably missing me so much he couldn't think straight. He has had a chat with Dave on the next plot and they've loosely planned to sort out the fencing and growth running between our plots in the autumn some time, so that's good. We found out that Andy used to have our plot about 12 years ago, but he gave it up. Baz also got some wise words about the weather, how it's changing (ie over the years, not day to day!), and something about a south-westerly wind at the end of May.

I'm heading back to Brighton today so I'll be visiting the allotment some time this week, yay!

I'm going to a physic garden this morning with my brother, sister-in-law and niece, check it if you want - http://dilstonphysicgarden.com/index.htm - which will be full of medicinal herbs, which is exciting, I'm really into the idea of growing herbs for medicinal purposes. I've put some echinacea seeds into a pot already, but I'm not convinced it's going to work as I think you're supposed to start them off inside... Anyway, I would love at some point to grow some things like chamomile, evening primrose, valerian, and heaps of other stuff which I don't even know about. I'll probably post some pics this week of it.

So it has been so lovely to get away from the bubble that is Brighton (and Hove) and get into the countryside and away from shops and people and buses and pollution and streetlights and rubbish and noise and neighbours having parties until 5 in the morning and all the junk I still need to sort out in our flat. But best of all I have got to hang out with my gorgeous nephew and niece and sister-in-law and big brother. Oh and Beaston the cat.  The only crappy thing is that my littlest sister is in hospital at the moment so I have been worrying about her a little, but I know she will be fine and she has my Mum and sisters there with her, and besides she's being waited on like a Greek goddess which is totally her idea of heaven! But seriously though, I'm sending her lots and lots of get well hugs and hoping she can come out of hospital today.

-x-

Sea weed

You know it's funny how we term certain plants 'weeds' and I only just realised we also do that for the non-land dwelling ones too- seaweed. Aren't they all just lovely, mother earth plants, here for millenia before any of us humanoids with our silly words came into existence?

Ok so I know I previously called bindweed a strangler, but I still think we shouldn't refer to it as a weed. This is what dictionary.com says:

weed

¹    [weed]

–noun

1.

a valueless plant growing wild, especially one that grows on cultivated ground to the exclusion or injury of the desired crop.

2.

any undesirable or troublesome plant, especially one that grows profusely where it is not wanted: The vacant lot was covered with weeds.

 

Ok so I think it's a bit harsh to say a plant is valueless... Imagine if we said that about a creature?

 

The New Oxford Dictionary of English says:

 

weed > noun 1. a wild plant growing where it is not wanted and in competition with cultivated plants // any wild plant growing in salt or fresh water.

 

Ok so that's a less harsh definition and I can live with that.

 

The main reason I brought the whole weed thing up is that I was reading a composting book at Mum's and I read that you can put seaweed into your heap. So I'll definitely be doing that seeing as we live so near to the lovely sea an' all. 

 

I'm up in Northumberland at the moment, which is brilliant mainly cos I get to play with my nephew and niece who are scrumptious and sorry Adam and Scarlet but I may have to accidentally kidnap them for a few weeks. Don't worry I'll post them back accidentally too like what happened to that gecko the other day.

 

Yesterday I filled in the complaints form on the council website, so we have now lodged an official complaint about the way Matt dealt with our original complaint/letter. He's such a noob.

xxxx

It's all coming together!

So I've been slack and haven't updated my dear lovely blog for a couple of weeks which has been mostly due to me cracking up a bit (don't worry I'm feeling much better today!) and also I seem to have been incredibly busy (mostly cracking up). But I am here now. With some of the cracks filled in....

So we have had our new allotment for two and half weeks, and we've definitely done a lot in that time. I have had quite a few moments of feeling totally overwhelmed by the allotment, which I know others would feel in our situation (ie new plot with loads of clearing and sowing to do and it's May so there's a slight urgency to it all!). I have had flip-out moments due to carpet everywhere and seen more woodlice than you can imagine, they're literally everywhere! Due to my slightly fragile mental state I've had days up there when I've felt really sociable and can talk to all the neighbours no problems, but I've had more days lately when I've wanted to hide from everyone and everything, and it has been like a sanctuary for me to escape to when I feel like I can't cope with the rest of the world. Or when I can't sleep.

Anyway, depressing stuff over (!), yesterday we had a great day there, at least I did anyway. I spent most of the day clearing the edges of the raspberry beds and clearing the path. I picked off so much bindweed- I never knew what this was until I just looked it up online. It's bloody annoying isn't it? It's a plant strangler that's for sure. I understand a bit more about the compost heap as well. I know that for most people it is a very simple concept, but I wasn't really sure what could go into it exactly. Baz got loads done- he is about 100 times quicker than me at digging over a bed and putting some seed in. Which meant he did two or three yesterday and also did other stuff like gathering up all the landfill stuff at the top and laying some slabs as a path to the compost heap.

What we have sowed/planted in the last week or so:

-beetroot
-the rest of the potatoes (King Edward and another one)
-onion
-garlic
-curly kale
-dwarf runner beans
-parsnip
-carrots
-lettuce

-echinacea

here are some pics, there's a lot.....

hasta la vista baby -x-